Gearboxes are omnipresent components in many industries. Gearboxes often include speed reduction and power transmission components. A gearbox can be a single-stage gearbox or a multi-stage gearbox. A gearbox could also represent or include external gearing, internal gearing, or rack and pinion gearing.
Because of this wide use, many industries are concerned with equipment failures. For example, one survey found that gearbox failures account for 34% of all failure modes (such as fatigue) in aircraft. Another survey revealed that gearbox failures account for 15% of all failures in a certain industry. Equipment failures typically result in lost revenues due to plant downtime. Accordingly, detecting potential failures (such as faults) in a gearbox or other equipment at an early stage can assist in preventing secondary damage, save maintenance costs, improve plant uptimes, reduce potential financial losses from plant downtime, and assist towards increasing productivity.